Willie B. Thomas & Butch Cage

b. 25 May 1912, Lobdell, Mississippi, USA. Thomas was permanently disabled by a back injury he received in his early teens during his family's migration to Louisiana. He partnered the fiddler James ‘Butch' Cage on kazoo for 10 years before taking up the guitar, on which he recorded with Cage after their discovery in 1959. Thomas was unusual in seeing no conflict between his secular music and his activities as a street preacher. His guitar playing, though limited, was an ideal complement to Cage's fiddle, and they formed an unmistakable, raucous vocal duo.